Ward of Ruin
by Cooptown
Summary: Disappearances in Alaska during a 67 day period of night draws the BAU to investigate. When they become the next victims of a severely psychotic cannibal, it'll be up to two of them to work out the puzzle and release them from a frozen hellhole. graphic. HIATUS (for now!)
1. Chapter 1

**Just about a year after first posting this, WOR is getting a re-write!**

* * *

_**Cruel and cold is the judgment of man, Cruel as winter, and cold as the snow; But by-and-by will the deed and the plan Be judged by the motive that lieth below.**_

_Lewis J Bates_

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**CHAPTER 1**

The icy Alaskan air was undisturbed by the noise that went on far, far below the snowy ground.

Deep down under the hard-packed earth, he licked the blood from his lips while his victim squirmed and cried out in this frozen hell, but the screams went unnoticed by her tormentor and the citizens that resided, unaware, far above them.

His glazed, mud-brown eyes didn't register the sights before him. The young woman, flayed open by his own hand, changed nothing in his disinterested expression. Her struggles were beginning to slow, but as he dug his terribly long nails into her open wounds to carve the flesh from her dying body, he didn't even pause.

He didn't speak; he didn't flinch when she fought back, blink when her blood sprayed across his face, or grimace as he chewed and chewed her tender flesh. He dug a hand into her ripped abdomen, fisting his fingers around the slippery flesh of an organ he didn't care to identify. As he pulled it from her body, she gave a choked, garbled moan. Blood ran from her half-open mouth in scarlet streams, and her blue eyes went wide with shock, then dulled with the thin sheen of death that glazed over the pale orbs.

Even as her body stiffened with death and rigor mortis began to overtake, he didn't stop. There was no sense of urgency as he feasted on the remains. He devoured the soft tissues that he could and when he didn't care to take anymore, he stood to stare down at the body occupying the burnished silver table neatly set up in the middle of the dull basement.

As he gathered his equipment and made his way back to the young girl sprawled against the smooth metal, his lips curled, more of a hiss than a grin. Dulled yellow teeth caught the sallow rays of the overhead light.

Carefully, he removed the parts that he would need. He neatly stacked little jars of formaldehyde next to his workplace and in them went her pretty blue eyes, crusted with death, alongside the untouched heart.

Once the jars were sealed, he touched his fingers to the jar containing her heart with wide eyes. He never touched the hearts; they were far too beautiful, even in his own twisted vision. The rest of the bodies were useless until he could find purpose for them later, but the eyes and hearts were merely his to treasure.

Using a sharpie, he wrote the name he'd given her- Nancy- painstakingly neatly on lopsided strips of tape he'd applied, and the jars were carefully stacked on the shelves alongside the other few dozen mason jars just like them.

He moved back to the table to get ready to dispose of her beautiful remains, and he licked the blood from his lips and fingers as he moved, glassy eyes trained on her eyeless face and torn mouth. Her lips were still so full and pretty, and the sight of them made him warm. He grunted, dragging a hand down her emptied torso. He would miss her; she'd been so good to him during her stay. She'd never hit him, or hurt him. She had cried a lot, and he'd liked that about her. His little Nancy had been so sweet. He'd loved her dark hair and blue eyes, and the fact that she wasn't impossibly thin like so many girls. She was just curvy enough, and that was how he liked his girls. But, he doubted he could find another as perfect as she.

Tears welled in his eyes at the thought, and he knew that he would miss her desperately.

He brushed a hand over her cheek, catching on her long lashes and he looked into the gaping sockets where her eyes had been and he felt a sad sense of longing that made him wish to take her again.

He leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers, probing his tongue into the bloodied chasm of her mouth and savoring the coppery tang that swirled over his senses. He pulled back and frowned at the empty feeling that accompanied the realization of her death.

The pain would stay for a while, but tomorrow there would be another.

* * *

"Okay, my dear, sweet crime-fighters," Garcia said sharply as she eyed the gathered agents authoritatively. "I have a new case for you, and it is just not pleasant."

"How 'not pleasant' are we talking?" Morgan questioned, and Garcia shook her head.

"Oh, my love, you obviously have yet to look into the file. Click away!"

The team flipped through the photos on their tablets. The disturbance that settled over them washed in like a black cloud.

JJ's pale brows arched toward her hairline. "Is this the only body?"

"The only one that we have," Garcia replied quickly, "but there have been over forty reported disappearances in Anchorage in the past year. People have literally been disappearing, like, twilight zone status, and until now there were _no_ bodies."

"We have one body, and it isn't even a _whole_ body," Blake added, her expression twisted in a grimace.

"The lower half was all they found?" Reid asked in a low voice, seeming unable to look away from the grisly images.

"Yeah, just a skeleton from the waist down," Garcia replied uncomfortably, shifting her eyes from the photos on the screen to the group. "The upper body was never found, but the bones caused the PD out there to reach out to us now that they're convinced they have a killer."

"And they probably do," Hotch offered grimly from his spot near the door, "as far as we know, they've had one for a year. Get your things packed, wheels up in an hour."

"And just so you all know-" Garcia called as they all got to their feet, "Alaska is in the middle of one of it's multi-month nights. It's going to be night time the entire time that you guys are out there, and there likely won't be very good cell phone reception or internet."

Hotch's eyes met hers and she held his gaze unsteadily and nervously.

"You're coming too, then," he decided after a beat, "get your go-bag ready."

They filed out of the room and Morgan followed Reid to his desk. He sauntered up to the younger profiler and sat on the edge of his smooth table. "Reid, what can you tell me about the night up there?"

A pensive look came over Reid's face as he drew up the information. He looked up at Morgan with a frown. "In Alaska, the sun goes down on November 18th and stays down for sixty-seven days; it rises again on January 24th. During that time, it's total night and the sun won't be up to offer light- at all. It's usually cold, snowy, and stormy the entire time."

"Looks like we have a lot to look forward to," Morgan replied sarcastically. "I guess packing light won't be an option this time around... time to break out the winter-wear."

* * *

Once Nancy's body had been taken care of and no traces remained on the precious alter, he left his home and began trekking through the snow again. Trudging through the slush in heavy winter clothes, he wasn't remarkable looking. He had no idea of the time, but it was still near-black outside. Normally, he would've waited until morning to begin scoping out again, but as it was, morning would not come for at least another month.

He hissed, salivating sloppily at the thought of another companion. He thought, perhaps, he'd take a male this time. He wasn't picky, and he tended to alternate. An animalistic grunt escaped his lips as he paused and glossy, almost inhuman eyes caught sight of another person approaching from the opposite way.

It was a young man, he noticed, and he was absolutely delighted at his luck.

He waited until the man was close enough, and the stranger pulled his scarf away from his mouth. "Excuse me," he called over the wind, "can you please point me in the direction of Tabetha's inn? The wind came in and I can't see a thing."

Smiling pleasantly, he slid a hand through his new friend's arm and turned to lead the young man into his own personal hell.

Just like the dozens of times before, the screams that rang out later that night, or day, would go completely and utterly unnoticed.

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**Please R&R with comments or questions. c:**


	2. Chapter 2

"_**Nothing burns like the cold." **_

― _George R.R. Martin_

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**CHAPTER 2**

The time it took to make it to the Anchorage PD passed in a blur. The hours of travel were spent pouring over the meager scraps of information in the case files, worrying over the weather, and drinking ungodly amounts of coffee in hopes of retaining the warmth garnered from it.

Hotch had sent Reid and Morgan off to the morgue the moment their feet had hit the snow, and the others had headed in to get set up. Settled now into the conference room of the department, the team set about getting their materials in order. Hotch pinned the one picture of the only scraps of a body they had onto the white board, uncapping a marker and carefully scrawling the date on the smooth, white surface.

"What do we have?" He asked, although they'd gone over it repeatedly during their overly-long flight in.

"Well, the remains were left out long enough to completely decompose until there was nothing left but bones, clean and polished," JJ offered, fingers leafing through the various pictures of the remains.

"It was severed at the waist, the ME said the separation wasn't clean... he suspected it had been done manually," Blake added, a frown marring her weathered features.

Hotch jotted the notes down on the board with bullet points while Rossi looked up with a furrowed brow. "Manually?"

"That's what he said," Blake replied grimly, fingers rapping against the surface of the table uneasily. "he said he suspected the vertebra had been wrenched apart by hand, rather than with tools."

"Twisting apart bone like that would be difficult and labor intensive," Rossi supplied. "We're almost definitely looking at a male unsub here."

Hotch wrote that down. "A male in very good physical shape."

"With that kind of hobby, wrenching people apart with his hands, he'd have to be severely psychotic. He'd live alone, and be unable to have relationships." Rossi offered.

JJ made a reach for her cell phone. "I'll call Morgan and Reid to see what they're finding out."

* * *

Morgan stared uncomfortably while Reid poked around at the bones with gloved hands.

"Was the body wrenched apart antemortem or postmortem?" The younger of the two asked sharply, glancing up at the ME who stood by the door, wringing his hands.

"Post," He replied quickly, "but there were other signs that some torture occurred before the victim died."

"Such as?" Morgan asked while Reid traced his fingers over a badly nicked femur.

"There are scratches on the bone," Reid spoke up before the medical examiner could, "caused by a knife?"

"A hunting knife, most likely," the man supplied, frowning, "they occurred antemortem, indicating torture."

"But for what purpose?" Morgan asked, sliding his hands into his pockets.

"The victim was likely cut open, allowing our killer access to the internals."

"The marks look more like scrapes than cuts," Reid said, standing up, "it looks likes the flesh was flayed clean from the bone."

"Only one real reason an unsub would cleave flesh from a skeleton," Morgan murmured, meeting his colleague's eyes darkly.

"What's that?" The ME asked uncertainly, glancing between the two profilers with no small amount of concern.

"He's eating his victims," Reid explained, slipping a hand into his pocket to grab his cell phone just as it began to ring. "Go ahead, JJ," he said by way of greeting, pressing the speaker-phone option.

"_Reid, what can you tell us about the separation injury?" _

"It was done post-mortem, by hand. We suspect the separation was done purely for convenience."

"_Anything else?" _

"Yeah, there were knife scratches on the skeleton. It's evident that the flesh was sheared from the bone, and we think he's eating his victims."

"_That explains why we haven't found the others bodies." _

"But why were we able to find this one?" Morgan asked incredulously, brow furrowed thoughtfully.

"_Maybe he wanted attention. The murders have just been mysterious disappearances until now." _

"This unsub is likely in a serious psychotic break," Reid bit out sharply, "we should get the profile out to the public as fast as we can."

"Do what you can, JJ," Morgan added, "we'll be back in half an hour."

Reid ended the phone call and slid his cell back into his pocket, peeling the blue gloves from his hands and tossing them in the trash bin, rubbing his palms together for warmth. "Heading back now?"

Morgan nodded. "Yeah... thanks, doc. We appreciate the help."

The ME led them out and saw them off, watching the SUV pull away, kicking up clouds of powdery snow in its wake.

The two stepped into the conference room thirty minutes later, as promised.

"What'd you guys get?" Morgan was quick to ask, settling into a seat at the table beside Rossi.

'We delivered a quick profile to the police, and they broadcasted it on the news and radios," Hotch replied stonily, "Garcia's set up a tip line and has already gotten a dozen calls."

"And," the brightly-colored tech added as she strode into the room, clutching a silver laptop to her chest, "get this, my gorgeous comrades, most of these calls are offering up the same guy as a suspect."

"With a name?" Blake demanded, sounding genuinely surprised.

"Yeah, most of the calls are naming a guy called Anthony Kents," Garcia replied quickly. "It'll take too long to play some of the calls, but I'll just summarize for you."

They tuned in to listen as Garcia straightened the edge of her floral shirt. "The profile was spread through Anchorage at record speed, and I got more than a dozen calls about our mystery man. Most were women who said they'd encountered our guy. Apparently, Anthony Kents is 'just a guy' that lives around here and frequently wanders into town. The people just think he's something of the town's 'crazy loon' and just don't mind him too much. According to what I've been told, he's just a weird dude who doesn't speak and likes to stare too much."

"Then we should run his name and see what you can come up with," JJ offered before waving a hand and smiling at Garcia wanly, "you already did, didn't you?"

"What kind of magician would I be if I hadn't?" The tech replied flippantly, setting her laptop on the table and opening it, fingers flying over the keys to pull up several different screens. "Kents is a thirty-two year old who purchases nothing besides formaldehyde and _tools. _And, by tools, I mean like, wood, nails, construction equipment, glass jars, knives, saws, lots of sheet-metal, etcetera."

"Okay, and those are the only purchases he's making?" Rossi asked, "no groceries, no electric?"

"There are electric and water bills, heating bills, and stuff like that," Penelope confirmed, dark eyes sweeping over her teammates worriedly, "but no grocery purchases."

"Because he's producing his own food,"Hotch concluded grimly. "Do you have an address for us?"

"You bet your fine, well-dressed self I do," she retorted enthusiastically, "the address should be routing itself to your cell phones in five, four, three, two..."

A chorus of chirps echoed through the room, and most were unable to keep from smiling.

"Alright," Hotch said in a matter-of-fact tone, "everyone suit up. We have no idea what we're walking in to."

"A suspect on our first day in," Rossi murmured skeptically, "this is turning out to be too good of a day."

They dispersed to arm up and retrieve their kevlar, completely unaware of the frozen hellhole they were about to enter.

* * *

The drive was a short one, just to the outskirts of town. By the time they arrived, it was snowing again, and the team found themselves concerned with the weather. The snow was coming down harder and harder, and they'd had to drive through two shallow, frosty streams to make it to their destination.

Arriving only with their two SUV's and one cop car, the team flanked the small house with their weapons drawn. The three police officers accompanying them did the same.

The outside of the house yielded nothing, and so they made their way to the front door.

"FBI," Rossi called through the door, earning no response.

Tilting his chin in a nod, Hotch stepped to the side and Morgan padded forward, throwing the door down with a quick maneuver. They stalked inside and spread out. Their multiple calls of 'clear' echoed through the dark house, and they regrouped in the living room.

Shaking his head, Hotch turned to address the cops. "Why don't you three return to the station? Tell the sheriff we didn't find anything. We're going to do a deeper search and try to profile the house."

With a nod of assent, the officers left, leaving the six agents alone.

JJ holstered her weapon with a concerned expression, folding her arms across her chest. "Well, you know what they say- if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

"Search the rooms," Hotch said stiffly, "see what we can find."

Reid wrinkled his nose, frowning. "Do you smell that?"

They each paused, deep breaths taking in the sweet, strong smell that had suddenly begun to permeate the icy air.

"_Gas?" _Blake asked, liquid-dark eyes wide in stunned realization.

They exchanged frantic looks, Rossi glancing up at the ceiling while Blake headed for the open door. She made it halfway there before she exhaled harshly, body going limp as she collapsed.

"W... what-," JJ tried, but her eyes rolled back and she fell before she could finish. Morgan tried to catch her, but found his limbs too heavy and his reflexes slowed drastically.

"What...?" He choked, repeating JJ while he lifted a hand sluggishly to the base of his neck.

"Gas takes people," Reid murmured, "affecting people by height and weight..."

"That means you're probably-"

Reid crumpled before Morgan could finish, and the dark-skinned agent looked to his older colleagues desperately.

They dropped like flies, one by one, unable to move for help while the poison worked its way through them. Hotch was the last to go, his vision going gray around the edges. The last thing he saw before blacking out was a pair of hiking boots stepping into view from the side, skulking toward them with the slow _thud, thud, thud _against the hard-wood floor.

He felt cold hands on his face, and the world went dark.

* * *

Morgan woke to shouts.

He shifted his head and noticed the heavy weight against his side. He didn't pull away, but instead blinked to clear his vision. He glanced down to see Reid settled against his shoulder. His young friend was breathing deeply, and made no move to get up.

Morgan let him stay where he was, and instead turned to see the rest of the team. He was startled to find they were in a completely different place than they were when they'd passed out. A sweep of the room made it look like an underground basement; but there were doors in the concrete walls, and Derek felt his stomach drop.

The team was just coming to, each of them in a different state of awareness. Morgan found Hotch and JJ the most awake, both of them at his left side with their wrists shackled.

"Hey," JJ said when she'd noticed him, "how're you feeling?"

"Groggy," Morgan replied honestly, "where are we?"

"Not sure," Hotch sighed, tugging half-heartedly at the cuffs, "we haven't seen him yet."

"Is that...?" Morgan shifted his focus to a pile of crushed plastic bits on an end table across the room.

"Our cell phones? Looks that way," JJ replied unhappily.

Morgan felt a distant part of his heart die at the sight of his crushed iphone, and the bitterness overtook immediately. The loss of the expensive device was irksome, but the feeling was quickly squashed when the reality of the situation swelled to the forefront of his mind like a wave of icy water. "We need to get the hell out of here."

One of the doors opened then, the noise making Rossi, Reid and Blake begin to stir.

A man walked in then, and his presence drew the attention of every agent in the room.

He was taller than any of them, with a hunched stance and a bulky frame that could compare with Morgan's, but stockier. His eyes were deep- a milky, clouded brown with dark, bruised circles beneath them. His shaggy hair was an auburn mop, and the stubble about his jaw and neck looked as though it hadn't been taken care of in weeks.

He shuffled toward them, his gait jerky and uncertain. He wrung his hands in front of him, breaths loud and animalistic.

"Hello," Hotch tried carefully, straining to keep his voice soft, "are you Anthony?"

Their attacker looked at Hotch sharply, his gaze so blank he looked like an animal. Those dead eyes traced over the entire group, and Kents stalked forward until he was kneeling in front of Morgan. In such close proximity, Morgan stared the man right in the eyes. Reid tactfully leaned as far away as he could.

Without saying a word, Anthony whipped a tiny syringe from his pocket, stabbing Morgan in the thigh and pushing down on the plunger. The agent recoiled, but once again, found his limbs too heavy to push the attacker away. Kents pulled a miniature key from his shirt pocket and unlocked Morgan's cuffs, helping him to his feet. He led the profiler through an archway into another, deeper room. The remaining agents strained forward to see.

Rossi, at the far end of the chain, was able to see the easiest. "There's a metal table... he's having Morgan lie down on it."

They tugged at their cuffs desperately, but their suspect had taken the key with him.

Feeling a jolt of panic at the all-too-familiar situation, Reid smashed his wrists against the wall. Again, again, and again.

"Reid?" Hotch asked questioningly, watching his subordinate carefully.

"The cuffs are kind of rusty," Reid replied, twisting his slightly-bloodied wrists in the metal clamp. After a few moments of struggling, he was able to pull his limbs loose from the weakened bonds. At their stunned looks, he tried to offer a tiny smile, though it looked more like a grimace. "Magician, remember?"

The others looked on with surprise before returning their attention to what was happening in the next room.

Reid stood up, skirting around his teammates outstretched legs until he could see Anthony, watching Morgan blankly.

"Hi," he called quietly, bringing both males attention to him. Morgan looked at him with muddled comprehension, his fingers twitching. Reid caught the movement, and realized with relief that the short-term drug must be wearing off already. If only he could distract Anthony long enough.

Kents was watching him with a blank face, no expression in his eyes.

"Anthony, I know this is important to you," Reid said in his most soothing voice, eyes slanting from the psychotic to his partner on the table and back again. "We can help you."

Dead eyes met him with no amount of expression or emotion at all; the disturbed man truly looked past the point of help, though Reid was unwilling not to try.

Saying nothing, Kents rose from his seated position at Morgan's side and moved toward Reid in staggering, zombie-like movements. The young profiler stepped back instinctively, barely noticing Morgan moving to get up behind their attacker. He kept his hazel eyes focused, unwilling to glance behind and give Morgan away.

Anthony lunged forward, throwing Reid and himself against the stone wall. His guttural, inhuman snarls rang through the damp room while the restrained team shouted and struggled. Morgan staggered up, folding powerful arms around the waist of the monster pinning his colleague. Reid hissed, bringing his knee up into the man's groin as Morgan tore him back.

Morgan felled the larger man in moments despite his weakened reflexes, and left Kents writhing on the floor.

"The key," Reid rasped rapidly, hands flailing in wild gestures, "get the _key!" _

Morgan dug through Anthony's pockets with clumsy, drug-slurred fingers, finding nothing. The murderer rolled onto his side, moving to stand and causing Morgan to move back. "It's not here!"

"Go for help," Hotch demanded, tugging fruitlessly against the chains that left him tethered to the stone wall, "hurry!"

Reid protested immediately. "We can't just leave-"

"_Now!_"

Morgan jogged past Reid with nearly-full coordination, hooking an arm around his partners waist and heaving him along. Together they flew through one of the doorways, hoping against hope that they'd chosen the door that would lead them out.

A crash as the weight of a massive body plowed through the door, the heavy thud of steps as they were followed, and the enraged roar of a predator on their trails propelled them forward with a desperation unlike anything either had felt in a long, long time.

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**Please R&R. C:**


	3. Chapter 3

"_**Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear."**_

_Mark Twain_

* * *

**CHAPTER 3**

Morgan ran.

He didn't know how far they'd gone, but Reid's harsh breaths at his side were reassuring in a way he couldn't describe. They made their way through the dark corridors with no idea of where they were going.

Reid skidded to a stop, folding lean fingers around Morgan's wrist to stop him too. "Another dead end, we have to pick a direction."

The rock wall was stone-strong in front of them, and the paths cut left and right.

"Uh, left," Morgan decided, already moving in that direction. Reid glanced back in the direction they'd come. The hall was dark, and he couldn't see their attacker. The sounds of the heavy footsteps came echoing, and the young profiler felt a chill before he turned to follow after his colleague.

"Reid!"

The call had him doubling speed, stopping when he reached his friend. Morgan had his back to him, and Reid stepped up to set a hand on his shoulder. "What is it?"

"Reid, I, we can't- we have to find a way out _now_."

Never had the older agent sound so distressed, and Reid's pale brows drew together in worry. Before he could question further, Morgan grabbed his wrist and jerked him into the room before them, shadowed in darkness.

There were shapes against the walls, but it was too dark to know what they were. Reid felt a subtle tremble in Morgan's limbs, and it caused his concern to spike.

"Morgan," he began anxiously, "what-"

"Just look," Derek hissed, "relax your eyes, you can see a little better."

Reid couldn't seem to tear his gaze from the side of Morgan's face, reluctant to see what had his colleague so worked up

"Just look, look."

Reid finally tore his eyes from Morgan to look at the walls, squinting at first to make out the distant shapes before blinking, relaxing his eyes and letting the dim room come into focus. When he did, his arms dropped limp to his sides. "_Oh_."

He backed out of the room, stumbling into the hallway, and Morgan followed. The older agents' face was ashen, his eyes wide.

"What do we _do_, kid?"

Reid's fingers were trembling at his sides, and he folded his hands into fists. "Morgan, there had to be a hundred bodies in there."

Morgan glanced back at the darkened entrance of the chamber, feeling a shiver race up his spine. The walls had been pinned up with human bodies, all gutted and mutilated. Their torsos hung open, dark pits in their centers that betrayed what horrors had been done to them before their grisly demise. Though details were minimally visible in the near-blackness, it was obvious that these people had experienced unimaginable horrors. Gaping throats, missing hands and feet, some bodies looking almost like they were sewn on with mis-matched limbs, some looking attached to those around them, but the fact remained that they were hung up so neatly, organized tightly in order to maximize space in the cavern.

"I know," Derek replied sincerely, "I've never seen something like that, ever."

Reid hissed, "why are we standing here? We need to get help for the others- they're still trapped back there with... him..."

"We have to go through that room," Derek murmured slowly, "we have to look for a door on the other side, otherwise we went the wrong way and we have to backtrack. He's probably waiting for us back there- he wasn't far behind."

Reid looked ahead into the dark tunnel again, frowning in semi-frightened concern. "We just have to move quickly. The less time spent in there, the better."

Morgan edged back to the archway leading into that hell-hole, fingers instinctively sliding over where his gun should have been and finding nothing but an empty holster. "Ready, kid?"

Reid chose not to reply as he brushed past his colleague, blinking rapidly to adjust to the near blackness of the room. He tried to ignore the faint outline of the bodies on the walls, making his way forward until he sensed, more than saw, the opposing wall in front of him.

"Here, Morgan," he called, relaxing when his partner padded up beside him.

"There's another door in here," Morgan said slowly, "we just need to find it."

They stared at the blackness before them, neither willing to be first to touch the stone wall.

Morgan reached out first, carefully resting his palm against the cold stone. He brushed his hand along, freezing when his fingers contacted cold skin. Cold, dead, human skin. It felt almost like plastic under his skin, well preserved as it was.

When the realization sunk in he ripped his hand back as though it had been burned, and he imagined the searing feel of acid on his palm.

Grimacing, they tried to avoid looking directly at the dead and instead they looked around until they spotted a dark, rectangular outline a few yards down. Morgan paused when reaching for the handle of the heavy door.

A woman hung upside down just left of the doorframe, her head directly beside the handle. Reid focused on her face, unable to stop a shudder at the slightly-obscured sight.

"Where's the door handle?" Morgan fumbled around in the dark.

"This woman has no tongue or eyes," Reid replied, ignoring the disgusted look he received in return for the information.

"Reid-"

"Morgan, she has no _heart_. Her chest cavity is completely empty-"

"Reid," Morgan tried again, exasperated. "Come on."

The older agent found the handle and the heavy door slid open with a rusty screech that left them both flinching. Morgan squeezed into the narrow hallway, shuffling down the corridor with Reid close behind.

"Morgan," came the whispered voice behind him, "what do we know so far?"

Derek's mind snapped into focus as he led them through the tunnel. "Alright, so he's a white male."

"Appeared to be in his late twenties, early thirties."

"Obviously mentally disturbed."

"Clearly psychotic," Reid replied quickly, "though he may have a mild form of ASD- he showed absolutely no recognition of human life at all. He didn't speak or even try to communicate with us, just manhandled."

Reid muttered after a moment while Morgan mulled over the information, "but they lack social skills, are generally habitual- there are other things to consider too, obviously. But he could fit this."

"No matter what," Morgan replied darkly, "something is seriously wrong with him."

"No doubt. He's harvesting organ's from his victims... we're pretty sure he's eating them, right? Well, with the amount of bodies left in there, he has to have something... stashed up somewhere."

"So now we just have to find his pantry, is what you're saying."

Reid gave a withering sigh behind him. "Exactly."

"I just wish we had a flashlight," Morgan murmured wistfully. He scowled, unseen in the dark as he groped along the walls. "I hope there's phone service out there with the storms. Maybe if we can get to the edge of town we can use someone's cell, or find a store with a phone we can borrow to call Garcia."

Reid shivered, almost able to feel the chill of the place seeping into his very bones. He found himself inching closer to his comrade. "I hate the dark."

Derek was about to reply when a harsh snap came from under one of his boots. He barely had time to get out his coworker's name before the ground dropped and he fell.

Morgan fell a few feet, but thin fingers curled around his wrist and stopped his fall before he had a chance to cry out.

"Reid?" He grunted, looking up from the narrow pit he'd fallen into. Reid's strained expression was above him, both hands curled around Derek's wrist. He was grateful for the help, but he knew Reid wouldn't be able to hold him up for long.

"Hang on," Reid grunted, pulling back, digging his heels into the packed-dirt ground to no avail. Morgan was twice his size.

"I don't think you can pull me up," Morgan announced truthfully, glancing downward with a wince.

"You're too heavy, but that doesn't mean I won't try," Reid hissed, straining to lift his companion.

Morgan scowled, feet scrabbling along the rocky wall. "Callin' me fat, you little meerkat?"

"Of course not, now's not a good time for joking, Morgan. You're, what, twice my weight in pure muscle, and muscle weighs a lot more than fat. You're going to rip my arms off so get a grip on the wall with your feet and help."

Morgan pressed his feet into the earthy walls, lunging up while Reid pulled back. Derek's feet slipped and he toppled backward. Reid's converse skidded along the smooth ground and he fought to hold back, but the pull was too strong. With a horrified shout, he toppled over the edge with Morgan.

Neither of them were sure how far down the drop was, but Reid hit Morgan's chest hard enough to drive the breath from the older man, and the ground they landed on was uneven. They flew, head over each other's heels, down a slope until they rolled to a stop in a tangled pile of limbs.

"You alright, kid?" Morgan grunted as he sat up with a wince, disentangling himself from his slimmer partner.

"I will be," Reid grouched, sitting up and rubbing his forehead over the back of his arm. He moved to stand up, and Morgan joined him, leaning against the wall for balance.

"Now what?" The young doctor asked, both wrists pressed against closed eyes, trying to filter out the rising stress of their perilous situation.

Morgan glanced down the hallway. The lighting was better down here, not light exactly, but not too dark. He could see- everything was overcast in earthen brown and sallow, yellow overtones. They were underground, and it looked like he'd have expected it to. Rocky, damp, and dark.

"Only one way down the corridor," he mumbled grimly. "Let's go."

He let Reid walk in front this time, following behind his colleague with careful treads.

After what seemed like miles, the hallway opened up once again. There were two doors, neither of them marked to give any indication of what was behind them. The two agents exchanged glances, and Reid turned the handle of the door on the left, peering inside.

He felt along the wall, finding a switch. He turned it on, and immediately wished he hadn't. Recoiling in shock, he stumbled back into Morgan's chest and he felt strong hands clap down on his shoulders. Reid righted himself quickly, breathing hard.

"You okay?" Morgan asked, and he nodded.

"Yeah, Morgan, that other room... with the bodies. It was bad, but this is..."

Brows furrowing, Morgan leaned past his dazed colleague. His near-black eyes swept the room, each detail searing into his memory.

_So much blood._

There were metal tables lined agains the far wall, smeared with gore. The red spattered the walls, flecked on the ceiling and congealing in macabre pools on the floor.

Derek slipped into the room, carefully sidestepping the fluid on the floor to get a better look at the walls. "Reid, there are posters here..."

Reid slunk up beside him, still looking shell-shocked. "Like Frank's trailer."

Morgan's eyes narrowed as he glanced over one of the poster's. "Kid, this is detailed."

The younger male looked at the diagram. "It's a laparotomy. He's experimenting on the victims by using picture-guides for references. Like he can learn how to operate on a human body with _diagrams._"

The image detailed an open human abdominal cavity. Everything was labeled neatly. The smudge of blood spotting the lower corner of the paper made Reid wince.

"Damn, Reid, look."

Morgan's wavering voice drew Reid from the poster long enough to look at what his partner was staring at.

They both looked at the shelves in shock, knowing exactly what they were seeing but struggling to process the information.

Wooden shelves against the walls held jars.

The jars, filled with a greenish fluid, contained human organs.

"What are you seeing?" Morgan asked sharply, looking at his companion.

Reid shook his head. "I, uh... hearts, livers, kidneys, lungs, eyes, tongues... oh, there's... brains."

"There's writing on the jars... let's see." Morgan leaned up to snatch one from the shelf. Two blue eyes sloshed inside, and Reid leaned forward for a better look.

"Nancy," Morgan read grimly, "victim one of... a hundred? There's no way to tell how many jars are here, and how many belong to one person." His shoulders slumped in dumbfounded discovery. "Even if we were to confiscate every jar in here, it would take ages to catalogue them, identify them and get them sorted out to get a realistic list of victims... there's no way to tell how many bodies we're looking at here."

"Morgan... there's a freezer down there," Reid interrupted his speech, padding toward the opposite end of the long room.

Derek looked up to see the ominous silver metal at the opposite end of the room. He set the jar back on the shelf and the two of them crept up to the unit. Reid's fingers closed on the handle and he opened it, allowing Morgan to step inside before following.

An older woman was suspended from the ceiling with hunting hooks embedded into each ankle.

Reid winced again. "Hooks to the achilles tendon. If that was done antemortem, Kents is definitely one for torture."

"I'm willing to bet it was done before she died," Morgan confirmed, gesturing to the frosted bucket below the woman. It was half-filled with congealed blood, but there was more than that. Reid knelt before the macabre bowl, trying to see without letting the female's head touch him. Peering into the bucket, he noticed organs and viscera half-hidden in the sea of blood.

Reid stood back up, scooting back until he nearly bumped into Morgan.

"Well," he said quickly, "abdominal cavity opened, cleaned out, organ's removed, eyes and tongue missing, blood drained... we're definitely looking at a _harvester_."

There were plastic tubs lining the shelves in the freezer, but neither profiler was eager to look through it.

A sudden crash sounded from the outside of the room and Reid yanked the freezer door shut. He and Morgan ducked down below the round window, high up on the metal door. It was iced over from the cold, but they were able to see a shadow pass outside.

The two agents exchanged looks, and with a gesture Morgan stood, carefully looking out the window.

A face stared back at him, cold with rage and watching with dead, dead eyes.

Morgan grunted, jerking back and crashing into Reid who had been standing behind him. Together, they toppled back into the suspended woman, tearing her down from the ceiling. They landed with her in a tangled heap, tipping the bucket and spraying ice-cold blood over their already freezing bodies.

They heard the door handle open and they jolted with movement, scrambling back until their wet bodies collided with the ice-coated wall of the freezer.

The door hissed open and Anthony Kents took a step inside.

* * *

**Please R&R. C:**


	4. Chapter 4

_**We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.**_

_- Benjamin Franklin_

* * *

**CHAPTER 4**

Morgan and Reid sat side by side with their backs pressed against the ice-coated wall of the industrial freezer, covered in chilled human blood with the remnants of viscera and bodily tissues soaking into clothing and hair coating their skin like a heavy gloss of paint.

Anthony stood at the open door, tall and menacing as a half-starved grizzly bear. He watched the pair with a blank gaze for only a moment, fingers twitching at his sides. It seemed as though he didn't notice the two males huddled against the opposite side of the cooler, and instead he reached down to grab the frosty blue ankle of the dead woman. He dragged her out into the open space of the room, dumping her clumsily onto the dirt-packed floor.

The two men leaned against the walls, struggling to stay as quiet as possible while the hulking man outside the door eyed the dead woman with the intensity of a hungry predator.

Anthony, after several quiet, agonizing minutes, seemed to lose interest in the corpse and instead he turned his cold, emotionless gaze on the two males huddled in the freezer. He stepped back through the doorway, eying them like slices of meat while they stared him down calculatingly.

Reid's nimble fingers slid along the ice-coated wall behind them, grasping onto a slender icicle when he found one. He snapped it off and waited, breaths coming in chilly pants while Morgan tensed beside him.

The older agent staggered to his feet when Kents approached closer, and the pair met eyes.

The burly monster of a man hardly seemed to notice the aggressive posture of his adversary, but his dead stare did increase in its intensity. He sauntered forward and Morgan glanced back at his partner, who was sliding up the frosted wall into a standing position.

Without a sound or twitch of warning, Kents lunged forward. Morgan barely had time to sidestep and Reid skittered to the side, slashing out with the glass-sharp icicle and drawing a line of blood from their attacker's jaw.

Wheeling in surprise, Anthony whirled and lashed out, catching Reid in the chest with one powerful hand and forcing the slender male against the side of the freezer. Without hesitation, Anthony snapped forward and closed his teeth on the young profiler's throat.

Everything froze, then.

Reid didn't move, eyes wide while his air supply became suddenly limited, and he felt the bruising pressure on his larynx increase when Anthony's pale eyes lifted to meet his own. The icicle slipped from his slackening fingers with a dull clatter.

Morgan stood still for only a moment before his senses returned and he closed a hand on the cannibal's wrist, attempting to pull him back. Anthony ripped his hand away and lashed out, catching Morgan across one angled cheekbone and sending him crashing. Reid gave a soft whimper at the sight of his downed friend, and he winced when the teeth tightened on his throat, cutting through the thin flesh like a knife through butter. The warmth of blood trickling down over his skin in the cold freezer was nauseating, and his hands fumbled with the man's belt, hoping to find something that could help.

Before he knew it, the pressure was gone, replaced by a tearing sear of pain along his neck as Anthony was thrown back against the opposite wall by brutal force.

Dazed, it took Reid a moment to notice the feel of Morgan's fingers clasping around his own, and it took all of his focus to force his body into a running motion beside his already moving partner.

They rushed from the room and continued out of it, ducking down another path they hadn't seen before. They kept going until their breaths started catching in their throats, and their limbs began shaking with exertion and the after effects of adrenaline.

"You alright?" Reid asked Morgan, his voice a raspy whisper.

"Yeah, fine," his partner panted in reply, "what about you?"

Reid twitched, immediately noticing the drying blood on his skin. Fingers numb with cold lifted to the torn skin of his throat, though the cuts weren't as deep as he had originally feared. "I'm okay, no major damage- we need to hurry, though. He's after us now, and we have to get out of here as soon as possible and send help back for the others."

Morgan shook his head with eyes closed, one hand fisted against his forehead. He leaned against the wall, his posture sagging with worry and exhaustion. "How much longer do we have to go?"

Reid frowned, glancing back down the hallway, into the dark abyss from which they'd come. "I wish I knew. Garcia has to have noticed by now that we're missing."

Their eyes met and they kept moving, praying that their blonde analyst had noticed their disappearance.

* * *

Penelope Garcia was unimpressed by the three officers relating the story of the botched raid to her.

"So," she said, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs. Fluffy, lime-green snow boots tapped against the carpeted floor impatiently. "You did not find our unsub, you left my team there, came back here, and now they're missing?"

"Yes ma'am," one of the younger-looking officers told her quickly, "we went back and looked when they didn't come back for a while, but they're gone. The SUV's are still there, but there aren't any traces of your team, except for this." He held up a slim silver band with a broken clasp.

"That's Rossi's watch," she said quietly, "where was it?"

"In the middle of the living room floor," one replied, sounding baffled, "the door was jammed when we tried to get in, so we kicked it in and found it sitting on the floor. It was the only thing we found though, so the latch must have broken in the... scuffle."

Garcia shook her head, swiveling around in the chair to type on the laptop set up on the desk.

"What are you doing?" The first officer asked, peering over her shoulder.

Her dark eyes flicked over to meet his with an annoyed look. "I'm trying to see if Kents owns any secondary properties that I might have missed on my first check. If he's taken the team, he has to have a place to go."

They watched in silence while her fingers flew over the keys until she paused and tilted her head. "Maybe his parents could have something..."

"His daddy left when he was in his teens," One of the officers told her, "and his mama disappeared a few years later- never saw what happened to her, we all assumed she'd just up and left. Her name was Krista, I think."

Garcia searched, blinking in surprise. "She had property not far from here- maybe a half hour's drive. Here, I'll send you and your sheriff the address."

The officers stood to leave but stopped when she moved to stand, grabbing her huge, puffy snow jacket from behind the chair, sliding it over her shoulders with purpose. Her dark eyes were menacing behind the glitter-encrusted pink rims of her cat-eye glasses. "They're my family- don't think I'm not going with you."

* * *

The winding, stony staircase led upward.

Reid and Morgan stared up into the dark with foreboding, neither willing to progress first.

"Alright kid," Morgan said darkly, "might as well start moving." He urged his partner up the stairs first, keeping close behind and ignoring the sense of urgency swelling up in his chest.

Reid swiped a hand over his neck, trying to drown out the soft patter of blood droplets hitting the stairs, leaving a tiny trail back to the bottom. He smudged the warm fluid from his hand onto his dirty slacks, suppressing a shiver. They climbed the stairs together until they were met with another archway, but this one led to a room that was already sparsely lit. They slunk into the room, side by side and with matching feelings of nervousness.

This one looked like a kitchen- the most macabre, disgusting kitchen ever seen, but a kitchen nonetheless. Cooking pots lined the industrial sized stove, the long counters covered in thick, wooden cutting boards, smudged and stained with dark marks, knives and cutting cleavers scattered over the surface. The blades looked dirty and rusted, their sharp edges crusted with dried blood.

Morgan's eyes widened when he caught sight of another table at the far wall. "Reid-"

"Morgan," his partner groaned in response, sounding as though he were about to be sick.

Morgan turned to look at what Reid saw, blinking when he noticed the younger agent looking upward. With his head tilted back, the jagged tear in his throat was exposed, and it looked rough. Dark eyes traced upward until they came upon the sick sight that would stay with both of them for the rest of their lives.

Hanging from short hooks embedded in the ceiling, displayed like links of sausages left out to dry, were dripping rows of human intestines.

"Reid," Morgan hissed again, looking back to the table where his eyes had lingered before, "look."

The doctor seemed shaken to the core, and it took him a moment to rouse and look where his partner was gesturing. They approached the table with zombie-like stiffness, trying to crush the sense of nausea. The four heads lined up on the table all had gaping eye sockets and tongueless, open mouths. Their hair had been sheared off, and the only way to tell gender was by facial features alone. Three had slender, tapered jaws and one had a square, stronger one. Three females and a male.

Reid touched the male's head, to Morgan's disgust, and turned it over to look at the base. "The spine was severed cleanly. I think even after he separates the body in half by wrenching, he cuts the heads off with clean precision."

"But what for?" Morgan asked helplessly, eying the head with no intention of touching it. "What's he gonna do, boil it like Dahmer?"

At the mention of the name, Reid turned the head over to look at the opposite temple. "There's a drill hole here, Morgan. It's actually really similar to Dahmer- the preservation, the heads, the storage, the... preparation. He could be idolizing him and using him as a guide."

"If that's the case, he probably has pictures of his handiwork around here somewhere."

Reid put the head down and pushed it away, rubbing his hands against his pant-legs furiously. "Did you know that some scientists trace cannibalism back to the upper paleolithic period? That was forty-thousand years ago. They base that study on-"

"Come on kid, not now," Morgan shushed gently, squeezing his partner's shoulder. "I know you're nervous, but let's just find a way out and you can tell me all about that later."

Blinking, Reid sidled around Morgan and traced along the length of the room, ignoring the rotting body parts scattered throughout. The smell was beginning to get unbearable, but he found what he was looking for before he could comment on the stench. "Morgan-"

His words were interrupted by a grunt and the sounds of shoes scuffing on concrete. He turned and was surprised to see his partner held against the chest of Anthony Kents, the larger man holding a rusted knife to Morgan's neck.

Morgan and Kents both met Reid's eyes, one set anxious and trusting, the other calculating and deadly. Reid stared back in a numb sense of shock, willing his brain to think of something useful. Think. _Quickly._

"Hello Anthony," Reid said softly, trying to keep his voice soothing despite the waver he was unable to dilute. He approached slowly, staying as close to the counter as he could. He kept wide hazel eyes locked on the murderer, slipping one hand across the edge of the counter to grab a knife, slipping it behind his back with practiced ease earned from years of magic tricks. His sleight of hand went unnoticed, just as he'd hoped.

"Why don't you let him go, and we can talk?" Reid asked, maintaining a gentle voice. He could feel Morgan staring him down, but he refused to tear his eyes from Anthony's. "How does that sound? We aren't going to hurt you, we just want to talk..."

Anthony didn't talk- that much had become apparent. Reid couldn't think of anything else to try. He continued walking, slowly, not stopping until he was a few feet away. He slid the knife- handle down- into his back pocket before holding up both hands in a mock surrender. "Come on, Anthony, let him go..."

Morgan felt the man's grip on him loosening and the knife go slack in his hand as his attention was drawn to the slender male in front of him. Seizing the opportunity, Morgan slid free of the grip and backed up, standing shoulder to shoulder with Reid and staring down their massive opponent.

Kents watched them, completely unfazed. Stock-still he stood, not a muscle twitching to give anything away until his hand shot out to snatch a nearly foot-long kitchen knife from the counter and he leapt forward on powerful legs.

Morgan and Reid staggered backwards, caught totally off guard. Anthony was upon them in seconds, throwing his massive weight and pinning both of them, shoulder to shoulder, on the floor.

His hand pressed down on Morgan's collar, the elbow of his other arm holding Reid's slim chest in place with the knife pointed at his face. Things were still for just a fraction of a second before Morgan slammed the base of his palm into their attacker's nose. Reid rolled to the side while Kents was stunned and snatched the blade from his hand, not hesitating before sinking it to the handle in the psychotic's thigh. Anthony howled, and lunged back, one hand going for the knife in his leg and the other going for his bleeding nose. That cry had been one of the first sounds uttered from him, but that barely registered in their adrenaline and terror-filled minds. Scrambling to their feet, both scanned the room for an exit before he was upon them again.

Anthony ripped the steak-knife from his thigh without so much as a grimace, stalking toward the pair with purpose in his otherwise dead eyes. The two men lunged to each side when Anthony leapt for them, leaving the him to stagger forward, his momentum thrown. He gripped a pipe against the wall for support, and the metal tubing shook hard enough to leave the dripping human intestines hanging from the ceiling swinging dangerously. A few slid from the hooks and slapped against the floor. Morgan felt Reid skittering away, seeming more concerned with avoiding the rotting organs than the psychopath in front of them.

"Reid, look for an exit," Morgan barked quickly, eyes darting from his companion's startled face to that of the crazed man who was getting up to attack again.

Reid slunk off quickly, patting along the walls for seams until he saw something. An open doorway- the corridor was dark except for a spot of light at the end, and he wondered how they could possibly have missed it.

"Morgan," he called, and the older agent turned to look at him just long enough to give Kents an opening to attack.

Kents lunged forward, knife in hand, and slashed down at Morgan's exposed body. Derek crumbled with a grunt, folding his body into a roll and coming up on his right knee, fingers ghosting over the shallow slash in his upper leg. The blood saturated the dark material of his cargo pants almost immediately, spattering to the dirty floor in harsh drops. Though it burned like fire under his skin, he let his fingers probe the wound for a second before he decided that it wouldn't need stitches before he staggered upright once more.

"Come on," the younger agent urged, seeing that Anthony was returning for more. The murderer threw his weight into the slighter male, but Reid pushed back with as much force as he could muster, leaving Derek to watch for a few seconds in stunned silence while the two grappled for control. Anthony was nearly twice Reid's size- he failed to see how this could turn out in his partner's favor, but he couldn't give up.

"Come on Reid," he murmured, fingers skating across the floor to find anything he could use as a weapon.

The standing pair collapsed in a heap and Morgan didn't see Anthony's hand crushing Reid's throat, forcing the young profiler's head into the floor and applying excruciating pressure to the already torn flesh. Blood welled up between his fingers but Reid didn't make a noise of pain aside from a sharp hiss of trying to draw breath.

Dazed hazel eyes watched Kents, and Reid's lean form strained against the hold. He felt the grip loosen and he lunged upward despite the crushing pressure, twisting so his shoulder was forced into Kents' throat. Reid didn't stop pushing upward then, and the movement, as he'd hoped, threw Anthony off guard.

He leapt upright with a sudden burst of strength, leaving the assailant crumpled backwards on the floor, dazed, while he climbed to his feet, glancing at Morgan in near-panic.

Morgan stumbled forward as though drunk, and strode past him then, carrying what looked like a meat cleaver in one hand. Anthony struggled to rise as he was approached, but as disoriented as he was, could not. Morgan swung the cleaver, striking their attacker on the side of the head with the flat side of it. He toppled over lifelessly, leaving the pair with space to breathe.

Morgan glanced down at the gash to his thigh, noting with dismay that blood was still streaming from it. Reid stood to the side, his skin ashen.

"Reid?" Morgan implored, unable to keep his voice from wavering as he blinked to try and dull the sudden pounding in his head.

"Come on," Reid replied faintly, sounding distant, "I saw something that could help."

Morgan let his partner lead him to the open doorway, very aware of the fact that they both used the wall for support. Though he put it down more to stress and exhaustion than actual injury, he didn't want to think about what would happen if Kents woke and they were still in the vicinity.

They trekked through the dark passage toward the speck of light at the end that grew larger and larger until they realized what it was with a sense of growing awe.

"A way out," Reid murmured, looking up at the near-blocked in opening. The gaping opening in the earth that led to the underground maze was nearly clogged up with snow, but gaps were streaming rays of impossibly-bright moonlight into the passageway with a promise of freedom.

"Let's dig," Morgan growled, scraping away at the ice crusted around the edges of the opening. Reid helped, and despite their rapidly weakening bodies, together they were able to pull enough ice loose to create an opening big enough to fit through.

Morgan pushed Reid's lighter frame up until he could writhe through onto the cold ground above, and Morgan looked up to see a pale hand, one not slicked with blood, reach down and offer help. He took it, and managed to hoist himself up enough for Reid to pull him the rest of the way.

They collapsed together, side by side in the snow, their faces illuminated by the brilliant moonlight that overtook the sky with little help from the sparse stars.

Derek listened to Reid's heavy breathing for a few seconds before he sat up with a grimace. "You all right, pretty boy? Where'd he get you?"

Reid sat up then, slowly and with a grimace, keeping one hand pressed against his abused throat while he looked at the ragged slash to Morgan's thigh. "The cold should... should stop the bleeding... it doesn't look deep, but it needs to be taken care of anyway," Reid murmured in a near-whisper. "We have to," his breath caught in a painful intake, "get out of here as soon as possible."

Morgan leaned in, his hip against Reid's, and he shivered, feeling the warmth of his partner's body while they huddled. "I hear you kid, one way or another, we're getting out of here."

Reid looked at him darkly, his normally bright eyes shadowed. "We've gotta get help for the others."

Morgan grimaced, and Reid knew his message had been received.

The others would need help soon- while they were still alive to receive it. That was their priority now.

Somewhere in the distance, a wolf bayed at the full moon.

* * *

**Please R&R. C:**

**NOTE: IF THE STORY IS CONFUSING, IT'S RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF A REWRITE. THE NEXT FEW CHAPTERS WILL BE UP IN THE NEXT WEEK OR SO, ALONG WITH AN UPDATE. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE!**


	5. Chapter 5

_**Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope **_

_- Unknown_

* * *

**CHAPTER 5**

The air was stale and getting hot, despite the sub-zero temperatures the outside world was experiencing. The remainder of the team had made little headway in their attempts at escape until JJ had managed the same feat Reid had- slipping a thin, somewhat bloodied wrist through the cuff. The hours of pulling had chaffed her skin into a bloody mess.

Stiff from sitting so long, JJ rose slowly to her feet and her pale eyes swept the floor, searching for the tiny key that had to be somewhere-she remembered Morgan saying that it wasn't on Kents, so surely he'd have dropped it.

She felt Hotch's eyes on her and she tried not to meet his stark gaze.

"Maybe he dropped it in the other room," Rossi spoke suddenly, and JJ jumped at the rough sound of his voice, "with the table."

The flaxen-haired woman moved into that room and knelt down to examine the floor, scanning the dirtied concrete for the key that could free them. She saw a glint of silver, half-hidden under the base of the gruesome 'altar'. She snatched it up, wiping the dust from it with her other hand.

"Got it," JJ announced, returning to unlock the cuffs keeping her teammates tied down. Once loose they rose on shaky limbs to regroup.

"Alright," Hotch barked, "So we've had no sign of Kents for hours, and we haven't heard anything since he took off after Morgan and Reid."

"They went this way," Blake said, pulling open the door that led down the hall their colleagues had fled through. It was empty now, the passage narrowing into a dark pit at the end.

"Well if they left a trail, we can try to follow it," JJ suggested grimly, taking the first step through the doorway.

The others exchanged troubled looks but followed, praying that their missing comrades had left something to tell them where they'd gone.

* * *

The warmth of blood in the snow had created an eerie, misty effect that Reid was watching with morbid fascination. The red liquid, still heated from their bodies, was having little trouble slowly melting the powdery snow it had spattered against.

He felt heavy fingers close around his wrist and he startled, looking up to meet Morgan's impossibly dark eyes.

"Come on," the older agent said grimly, "we've gotta see if we can find help."

Reid followed reluctantly, and the pair trekked slowly through the ankle-deep snow. Morgan leaned against his partner, trying to seem as though he wasn't.

They didn't make it too much farther before Morgan stopped with a grunt. Reid helped him sink to the ground, saving him from falling.

"Thanks," Derek breathed, trying to sit up. Reid's hand on his shoulder kept him planted in the powdery snow.

"The cut isn't that deep," Reid began, hazel eyes tracing over the long tear through his partners ripped cargo pants, "but it's still bleeding and might have done nerve damage if it is in fact deeper than it looks."

Morgan grimaced, looking out into the never-ending expanse of blackened, twisted trees. He had no idea how far from Anthony's hell of a house they'd gotten.

"What're our options, kid?" He finally asked, looking up at his friend's pale face.

Reid's eyes swept back and forth, pupils dilated widely to capture as much of the sparse light as possible. "We can't walk very far with you like this-and I'm not leaving you alone, so don't even suggest it-and, we can't exactly stay here... there are wild animals in woods like these."

Morgan gave an exhausted sigh. "I can walk, Reid, it's just a cut- hurts like hell, but it's not gonna kill me. Help me up, would you?"

His partner's young face hardened immediately into a stubborn mask, and Morgan knew that this was not going to work.

"Please?" He tried, frowning when Reid only looked at him sternly.

"You're asking me to drag you along on an injured leg, bleeding, in the snow with a serial cannibal tailing us," the younger profiler replied harshly, "that's crazy."

Derek gestured to the blood soaking the collar and front of Reid's shirt. "You're bleeding too, kid, and we can't just wait to die in the snow. The others are depending on us too."

Reid looked at him darkly, his expression so drawn and distraught that Morgan wondered if he was resigning himself to fate. "Okay," he finally whispered, "but we're just going to yell around, okay?"

Morgan smiled grimly, squeezing Reid's reassuringly. "Kents could hear us."

"Or _help _could hear us," Reid asserted through gritted teeth, "We'll have to take the risk. We won't last out here all night."

He rose to his feet and Morgan silently accepted his assistance in rising himself, and together they began trekking slowly in the direction they'd been heading before they had stopped.

Derek looked up at the moon, feeling a tightness in his chest he'd never felt before, and shouted for help as loud as he could.

Penelope was most definitely not a happy camper. She hugged her snow-coat tighter around her shoulders, trudging slowly through the snow while she struggled to drag her furry, oversized boots through the heavy slush.

She and most of the police department were waltzing through the frost toward the property that had belonged to their suspect's mother. The land was completely empty, and she had no idea what they were looking for.

"Agent Garcia!" An officer called, loudly enough to bring her from her thoughts.

Eyes narrowed in determination, she approached the officer. "Have something?" she asked worriedly, nearly wringing her hands.

He pointed, and her eyes caught the heavy splash of blood beside a gaping hole in the ground that looked half-caved in. The red liquid gleamed like a diamond-smooth surface in the low light, stark in contrast against the pure white of the snow. One hand flew to her mouth while her eyes followed the spattered path that led into the trees.

"My god, it's probably-" She was cut off by a ringing cry for help that echoed then, the voice from the trees was exhausted, strained, and distinctly male. It was a voice that she most definitely recognized.

"Derek," she breathed, waving her hands frantically at the officers that were staring at her. "The trees- find out where he is!"

They moved quickly, spreading through the trees like bloodhounds on a scent trail.

Penelope could hardly find the presence of mind to jog after them, distraught as she was. Another familiar voice echoed now, her friend crying out and she winced at the hoarse desperation in his voice.

"Reid!" She wailed back as loud as she could, following the officers into the trees where they fanned out to search.

Garcia didn't have to go far. A few near stumbling steps into the trees had her meeting a staggering shape that barreled into her hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs. Reid was much taller than she was- and she was almost thrown onto her rear in the snow. She threw her arms around his lithe waist to stop from falling.

"Reid, honey, are you alright?" She demanded, searching for his face in the dark. A soft glint of light across the whites of his eyes led her to meet his gaze. A wet warmth against her front drew her eyes down, and they widened almost comically when the moonlight exposed the blood drenching Reid's clothing. "What _happened?" _She demanded fiercely, gripping his shoulder hard enough to make the young profiler wince.

"I'm- I'll be okay," He replied hurriedly, panting to catch his breath, "Morgan, he's- I left him back a ways to get help, but we have to get to him. Come on." He tugged on her wrist and they made their way back to where he had left Morgan. Garcia held much of Reid's weight herself, but neither chose to comment on the fact.

"Over here!" An officer called, and they followed the voice. Both were relieved to see Morgan sprawled out, leaning against a tree with a crooked half-smile on his weary face.

"Good work Reid," the older agent praised, "you found the cavalry."

"They found me," Reid murmured in reply as the cop helped Derek to his feet. He turned to look at Garcia over his shoulder. "We were walking away from the general direction of where he had us- I left Morgan here when I heard your voice so I could meet up with you faster. He's got a gash on his leg that needs looking at."

"You two need to get to a hospital," Garcia said anxiously, frowning when they both shook their heads.

"Not a chance," Morgan growled, "Hotch and everyone are still down there in that hellhole."

"What hellhole?" Penelope demanded, eyes widening in panicked horror behind her cat-eye glasses. Her gaze swept between the two men before her, a silent plea for an explanation.

"The place where the unsub was holding us," Reid ground out, "it's an underground torture chamber. The others are still chained up down there."

Morgan hissed when an officer pressed down on the gash on his thigh, trying to retain his composure. "Yeah, we were lucky enough to escape. Thank god you found us though, baby girl, we thought we were gonna have to wait it out in the cold."

"Never would I leave my babies in the hands of evil-doers," Garcia swore, lookingback over her shoulder. "Back there- we saw blood in the snow, I'm assuming it was yours, but there was a hole in the ground...it looked all caved in. What was it?"

"That's where we escaped from," Reid replied, shifting his weight uncomfortably, "It's a room down there. Some sort of kitchen."

"A cannibal's kitchen," Morgan added, making Garcia shiver.

The blonde-haired tech looked up at the few police officers still standing around. "Okay, I'm assuming you've already called for paramedics because if you haven't, I'll destroy you, and second, get a search-and-rescue team down into that hole immediately and make sure you're all armed! This sicko should be considered armed-and-dangerous so get your butts down there _ASAP_!"

They stared at her in shock and she growled. "Did I stutter? My team's down there! Go!"

The next ten or so minutes passed in a blur, while the police department struggled to get a rescue team down into the underground tunnels, and while Garcia waited, hunkered down beside Morgan and Reid, waiting for the paramedics to arrive.

They knew a normal ambulance wouldn't be able to make it through such heavy snow, so when the sound of helicopter blades slicing through the frigid air broke the silence and all three agents looked up in relief.

The copter landed close enough to kick up waves of powdery snow, creating a misty, looming fog around the entire clearing. It wasn't long before two EMTs exited and made their way toward them.

Morgan fought against their advances. "We can't go until we know if our team is alright-"

"Sir," one medic cut him off, his eyes kind, "we need to get you both in before you freeze any more than you already are."

Reid nudged his partner, wanting to stay behind as well and also knowing the risks of staying put. The odds were not in their favor, and he understood that it was time to go.

Garcia watched her half-frozen colleagues being practically dragged away into the helicopter, painfully aware that she was now mostly-alone, unless she chose to follow the officers into the pit.

Biting her lip, she made her way over to the gaping hole in the ground, and started scooting her way down. With any luck, she'd be able to find the others with little trouble.

* * *

The team stuck close together, unsure of where they were going and only hoping that the direction would lead them out of the torture chambers in which they were currently locked.

They passed, single file, into yet another room that held sinister and dangerous secrets. The room was lined with tables and shelves, the walls spattered with questionable fluids and diagrams. And there were greenish jars of fluid and flesh on the shelves.

"Look," Rossi nudged Hotch's shoulder when the older profiler's eyes settled on an open door on the other end of the room. "A freezer."

Hotch turned his gaze, and found his eyes immediately drawn to what lay _outside_ of the freezer. A woman. Completely naked, her eyes open and unseeing with skin a frosty blue. It was clear that she was no longer among the living. She'd been gutted, her abdominal cavity left completely empty.

Looking past her body, Hotch could see that the walls were splashed with blood. Great smears of the frozen liquid lined the walls and the floor, as though someone had been dragged.

Two someones, by the look of the smears.

"There's a trail," Alex said, nodding toward a spattered section of red liquid on the dusty floor near the exit to the room. "Blood."

The group stuck close in pairs. Blake stayed at JJ' side while Hotch and Rossi took the lead, taking careful steps into the corridor. They were careful to follow the dark marks of blood along the floor into the next room. This place appeared...final somehow. Like an end-game. It was more open and spacious than the others, and in here, it was obvious a struggle had taken place.

Blood was sprayed along the far wall and collected on the floor in congealing pools, drying slowly in the stuffy air. The walls were lined with more diagrams and tools, the floor covered with tables and shelves containing more of those sickening mason jars filled with formaldehyde and whatever fleshy bits Kents had deigned to keep inside. The tables were spread with aging bones and drying sheets of skin, human organs separated and neatly arranged for storage purposes. Pots and pans lined an industrial looking stove, ready for operation.

It was truly sickening.

JJ sucked in a breath and tried not to heave, her blue eyes wide in total shock. "This is a nightmare."

Before any of them could open their mouths to speak, a light shone into the room from a dark tunnel opening in the opposite wall. Within seconds, six police officers had swarmed the room and were upon them.

"Thank God you're all alright," One man said as he approached, running a hand through his short black hair. His pale grayish eyes looked eerie in the sallow overhead light.

"Officer Litwin," Hotch recognized the man with a nod, "it's good to see you."

"Definitely," Alex agreed, "tell us you've got a way out of here?"

"Sure do," The man replied, brightening despite the gore they were surrounded by, "we've got your men-and your tech girl-up there."

"Morgan and Reid?" JJ asked, her shoulders slumping in relief. "Good, are they okay?"

"They were a little roughed up but it didn't seem life or death," Litwin responded quickly, shaking his head. "The medi-copter landed to pick them up just when we came down."

Somebody else emerged from the tunnel, now drawing the attention of every person in the room. Bodies went tense as though the mentally unstable murderer himself might be walking through the doorway.

They were greeted instead by an irritated woman with bleach-blonde hair and lime green glasses.

"For the love of _all that is electronic_, thank heaven above you're all okay!" Garcia cried, approaching the group rapidly, her furry boots damp with melted snow.

"Thanks for tracking us down, Garcia," Rossi offered generously, attempting to placate the high-strung analyst. She gave him a poisonous look that clearly stated that she knew what he was doing and she did not approve.

"Morgan and Reid were hurt- they were taken by those helicopter-doctors a little while ago. Oh, they said something about the bad guy, they left him down here after KO-ing him."

The team and the police force exchanged dark glances.

Slowly, everyone's eyes went to the freshest looking pool of blood in the middle of the floor.

Kents was most definitely not where he'd been left, and no one knew where he was.

"Alright," Hotch started, his heavy voice once again sounding like himself-all business, ready to roll. "Let's regroup with the others at the hospital- we'll see what they know."

* * *

The trip from Anthony's 'lair' to the closest hospital- which was deep into the heart of Anchorage- was as unpleasant as it could get. Piled together in the police chief's snow-plow of an SUV, the team impatiently waited as they slowly made their way through the wilds to get back into the town. Once in the town, they had to reach the entire other side of the establishment to get to the place where their friends were. The PD had graciously returned their weapons, found during the search of the tunnels, and the entire team was feeling just a bit safer now that they were armed again.

They filed one-by-one into the waiting-room, greeted by the sight of Morgan, sitting back on a plush looking couch with his leg stretched out in front of him. He looked up as the team entered, and smiled despite his injuries. His hand unconsciously hovered over the blood-soaked section of his pants over his thigh, though the fabric had been sliced open to allow for stitches.

"Didn't they offer you different pants?" JJ asked, gesturing to the less-than-clean ones Morgan was still donning.

"Hey," He greeted, ignoring the question. "We've been waitin' for you."

Garcia was quick to settle down at his side, grabbing his hand possessively. "We should get you out of those dirty pants, tiger," she said automatically, eyeing the bloodied fabric viciously.

"Wouldn't you love that?" Morgan shot back with a tiny smirk, looking up to Hotch with urgency shadowing his black eyes. "Did you get Kents?"

"No," The unit chief replied gravely, "he wasn't there."

Morgan swore, hands curling into fists and squeezing Garcia's hand within his own. "Dammit to hell, we clocked him good and split, he was passed out on the floor when we left."

Hotch shook his head slowly, "he was gone, we have no idea where to." He suddenly turned his attention to JJ, who was rubbing one bloodied wrist with the opposite hand. Taking the hint, she went to get them checked out.

Derek scrubbed a hand over his head. "Dammit," he repeated harshly, "Reid and I are aren't that bad off, Hotch, what do we do next?"

The dark-haired man sank down into an empty seat at Morgan's side. "Where's Reid?"

"In the bathroom, last I heard," The wounded agent replied quickly, "he'll be out in a minute, he was fussing over getting fixed up."

Hotch exchanged a quick look with Blake before returning his night-black gaze to his subordinate. "What can you tell us about what you saw?"

Morgan leaned forward with interest. "Pretty standard psycho-stuff in the beginning, I mean, nothing we haven't seen before. At first it was just creepy-crawly hallways with dim lights and rocky walls. Then," his voice hitched and he cleared his throat, "then we went through this room- it was really dark, but we could see... enough."

They could see his hesitation, and the soft shock that filtered through his bulky form as though physically repelling the memory, "The walls, Hotch. He had stuffed-and-dried bodies pinned up on the walls. Upside down, sideways, backwards, whatever way he could to make as many as possible fit onto the walls and ceiling like a puzzle. They were gutted, and their eyes were missing." He paused again, taking a deep breath. "Hotch, I ain't ever seen anything like it in my life."

"How many bodies?" Rossi asked quietly, folding his arms across his chest and watching Morgan intently, not missing a word the younger profiler was speaking.

"Reid said 'there's gotta be a hundred bodies in there' or something, but I'm not sure."

Hotch's mouth shifted into a deeper frown. "Morgan, we need to be certain. If there were even close to a hundred bodies in there- that would put Kents up there with Frank as one of the most prolific serial killers of all time."

"I can't be certain now, Hotch," Reid's voice cut in, and the team looked up to see the lean young man padding into the front room with his face pale, hair messy and wild, and hands buried in his pockets. There were thick strips of gauze wrapped about his throat, stained with dark fluid in decent-sized specks. "It was too dark to see clearly, to be honest. We didn't stick around long enough to count exactly."

"The next room," Derek continued, wanting to be finished as quickly as possible, "had shelves with those weird jars. They had formaldehyde and body parts."

"Again, we didn't look long enough but I didn't happen to see any repeated names," Reid added, taking the seat on the other side of Hotch, "but they were all labeled with names. If he was only taking one part per victim, then we have a problem because there were definitely more jars than there were victims in the previous room."

"So you're saying that we could be dealing, potentially, with hundreds of victims," Rossi concluded, "could that all be possible for just one unsub?"

"We can't be sure," Blake murmured, running a hand through tousled auburn hair, "but I doubt someone with Anthony's mental status would be able to have a partner. It's extremely difficult for him to have non-aggressive contact with other people, and he didn't seem able to communicate at all when we were with him."

"Are you two cleared to leave?" Hotch asked his subordinates directly.

The two men exchanged glances.

"I was told to 'take it easy', but it's only sore to walk on, nothing too bad," Morgan offered quickly, with Reid nodding his affirmative.

"Alright, back to the hotel for all of us then," Hotch conceded, uttering a tired sigh. "We'll get some rest and start fresh tomorrow with clear minds-we'll go over what we have-again-and we'll start looking for Kents all over again."

When JJ returned a few minutes later with cleanly wrapped wrists, the team made their way out to the waiting snow-strength vehicles. It didn't take long for the trucks to be loaded up and begin plowing through heavy sheets of snow as they drove back toward the edge of the town where their lodgings were.

"Did you see that?" Reid started once they'd left most of the city behind them, sitting up from where he was stretched out across the back seat of one vehicle.

"See what?" Blake asked from the front seat, her head swiveling to look forward into the white abyss outside. She felt Hotch shift anxiously in the driver's seat.

A dark mass suddenly appeared just in front of them and Hotch jerked the wheel and the brake, causing the car to swerve hard. Everyone hung on tight while they spun out, banking deep into the mass of white powder that now nearly entombed the front end of the car.

The dark shape lumbered closer in the white storm, and hands slid along the black sides of the car. Anthony Kents' face pressed against the window on Alex's side, and the brunette agent cried out in surprised horror.

She struggled to push down on the lock at the same time the man began prying at the door. His lips pulled back from yellowing teeth in displeasure, and his muddy brown eyes rolled up to meet hers. All three agents watched with wide eyes.

Anthony snarled, baring his teeth again. The agents were stunned and sickened to see thin shreds of reddish flesh stuck between the sharp incisors. There was no telling what, or who, it was.

The only thing that came clearly to their minds was that the violent man wanted them to be next.

* * *

**Revised & reposted 3.7.13**


	6. Chapter 6

_**"Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence." **_

_- Henrik Tikkanen_

* * *

**CHAPTER 6**

The massive SUV sunk, centimeter by centimeter, into the rapidly deepening snow. The stormy air blew waves of white to crash against the glossy black sides of the vehicle. The haze was blinding, all visuals blurred and smudged into glaring, crystal oblivion.

Hotch shoved the gearstick from neutral to drive, and back again, trying to jolt the suburban into movement. For his efforts, the engine revved and whined in time with his heavy depressions on the gas pedal.

Alex leaned back as far as she could from the window, fumbling to unbuckle her seatbelt but unable to tear her eyes away from the raging man at the window. Kents was pressed against the passenger side, blunt fingers scrabbling messily at the frosted glass in a crazed attempt to get through.

"Reid," she started, her voice pitched higher than usual and sounding to be on the fine edge between stress and panic, "any useful information would be much appreciated right now!"

Reid, in the backseat, merely flailed his hands wildly in a silent attempt to articulate his rapidly spiraling thoughts.

"Okay, helpful, thanks," Blake grunted, twisting out of her seatbelt enough to slide her glock from its holster at her side.

"Wait," Hotch cut in as she lifted the weapon, "don't blow the glass out- he'll gain access and the snow will get in. We'll lose all visual."

"We don't have much visual now," she bit back, keeping her weapon leveled at the window. The smudged and blurry face of Anthony Kents leered back in at them, only his mud brown eyes clear against the hazy silhouette of his body.

"He moves with a limp!" Reid blurted suddenly from the back, making both agents in the front seats jump. They whipped around, two dark pairs of eyes meeting his own wide hazel ones.

"What?" Hotch finally asked, prompting for elaboration.

"When he moves," Reid continued quickly, "he moves with really sluggish motions and a limping gait. We could probably get away from him on foot."

"You want to get out and run?" Blake demanded, the fingers of her free hand tightening on the leather of the seat, "you're all kinds of beat up, how is that supposed to work?"

"It's not as bad as it looked," Reid reassured quickly, "this cut on my neck didn't mess up my legs."

"Enough," Hotch interjected, and they both looked over to their unit chief. "We can't stay in the truck forever, it's not going to move, it's _stuck_." The others were ahead of us but probably didn't see us in their rearview with this visibility, so I doubt they'll be rushing to the rescue. We can't shoot him without cause, so we'll have to try and talk him down."

"Hotch, if he's suffering a mental disorder we might not be able to do that," Reid replied slowly, "he seemed beyond reason when Morgan and I were dealing with him. He didn't respond to a word we said or even really acknowledge our sentience. He was just hunting us down like animals."

"Maybe we can identify with him," Alex added, "ask about his parents, his history... we could try to get him to talk."

"He hasn't spoken a word so far," Reid bit out, watching their attacker pace back and forth on the passenger side of the SUV, "maybe he can't."

"Regardless," Hotch murmured, one hand reaching for the door handle, "we need to get him neutralized. We can't just wait."

The click of the driver's door opening couldn't possibly have been heard over the noise of the wind, but Anthony's eyes shot up to stare straight in at them as though he had sensed it.

Reid's entire body was tense as a drawn bowstring as Hotch exited the vehicle, taking slow steps toward the back. As he cleared the side, Kents stepped back, edging around to stop in front of him. He left the passenger side clear enough for Blake to slide out also, pulling the hood of her thick winter jacket higher against her neck to protect from the chill.

Sliding a hand over the butt of his gun, Reid got out as well, sidling up to a comfortable distance beside Hotch. With Alex at the unit chief's other side, they faced the predator, braced not fifteen feet from their position.

"Anthony Kents," Hotch tried, having to yell to be heard over the storm. Though there was no verbal response, a chill seemed to rush through the man and his entire frame shuddered. Misty eyes met Hotch's dead-on.

"Anthony, we just want to help you. We know what you've been doing, and you can't keep doing it." The words may have sounded gentler if they hadn't been shouted.

The auburn-haired man tilted his head as though listening, though still did not offer a response.

"Come with us, Anthony," Blake added loudly, "we can help you. That's all we want for you, is to help you get better. The way you've been acting is wrong. The whole city is afraid of you... but you just want friends, don't you?"

He stared at them, as though he couldn't comprehend what they were saying. It was almost as though he didn't realize they were even there. Then, without warning, he lunged forward.

Hotch threw out his arms to push his two colleagues back, preparing to stand up to their assailant when neon-bright lights glared down on them, making every one of them drop to their knees, blinded by the sudden assault.

Anthony staggered and his hands flew to his face, a pained whine escaping his throat as he tried to step back out of the yellow-white beams.

The sound seemed to come long after the floodlights. The shuddering ripples of helicopter blades through the ice-laced air were a welcome relief. The lights dimmed and the profilers looked up to see the copter lowering toward them. The ladder emerged from the dark pit of the aircraft's underside, and Blake grabbed it gratefully.

"Anthony," Hotch tried again, calling out to the still form huddled a few yards away, "we can help you."

The fugitive met the agent's eyes once more, before he turned and staggered away into the trees. Reid twitched and leaned forward as though attempting to follow, and Hotch grabbed the younger man's shoulder tightly.

"Let him go," he said firmly, "we'll catch him, but now is not the time. We're unprepared, without backup, and he's scared. He's more dangerous now than ever before."

Reluctantly, the three of them climbed into the safety of the copter, though the chill of the air, and the chill in their hearts, refused to warm.

* * *

Their story was relayed in the hotel lobby to their teammates, who had made it back with relatively little trouble much earlier. Despite Garcia having been in near hysterics over what could have happened, the reunion was happy, and very, very welcome. Ten minutes after the first truck had arrived—with no sign of the second truck—Garcia had the initiative to report the fact to the police chief, who had a copter sent out after the missing agents.

The seven of them were spread out in the lobby, taking up the entire couch and most of the armchairs as they struggled to piece together what parts of the case they could.

"Anthony Kents, thirty-two years old, born and raised in Anchorage by his parents, Alexis and Jonathon Kents." Garcia relayed, reclining in an overstuffed chair by the fireplace. "Oh, listen to this," she added, and six pairs of eyes locked onto her face. "Mr. Kents left when Anthony was young. Mrs. Kents disappeared almost fifteen years ago without a trace. Jonathon fell off the grid a short time later."

"Nobody thought to check out Anthony after the disappearances?" Morgan asked disapprovingly. "That seems a little hard to believe."

"No, no, they did- and that's the weird part. He was cleared by authorities, says here he was deemed mentally unfit to have been involved. Apparently he was on medication for anti-psychosis when he was younger. After his parents disappeared, he was put into foster care."

"Fifteen years ago- he would have been seventeen," JJ threw out, "he would've only been in foster care for a year."

"Very true, princess," Penelope agreed quickly, "and he was. He wasn't adopted during that year, and he was released upon turning eighteen. I suppose we can all assume he's been a crazy murderer since then?"

Hotch frowned. "If that's the case, then it's almost certain he did have something to do with the parents' disappearances. We just have to find out what. Psychosis like this doesn't just happen."

"He could've stopped taking the medication, and that's when he could've snapped and killed the parents," Reid offered. "If that's the case, I doubt he would have disposed of the bodies. If they were his first victims, he probably kept them."

"But where?" Rossi asked, from his spot at the edge of the couch, looking pensive.

Reid's eyes narrowed in thought. "Somewhere that would've been important to him. We didn't notice anything that stood out when we were... down there. In his kill-room."

"So then..." JJ murmured, trailing off.

"We need to check his home again," Rossi said grimly, standing up and grabbing his coat from the back of the chair. "Anyone up for a little arctic exploration?"

Looks were exchanged, and despite the soreness and chills raking through each of them, they all stood.

* * *

The house was completely silent, and the lights were dim.

They crept through the sparsely-decorated home, each trying to keep their minds from the fact they had been here not even a day ago, at the start of the hellish trip that had taken wrong turn after wrong turn.

"You okay back there?" Blake asked, making sure Reid was keeping pace with his distracted, slowed gait behind her.

"Fine," the younger profiler replied off-handedly. "Remember, we didn't find anything earlier so wherever he could have hidden bodies will likely be extremely well-guarded. Look for seams in the walls and floors. We can move furniture to look behind it, too."

Taking mental notes, she did just as advised. Liquid-brown eyes scanned the walls while Reid watched the floor. They both took care to tread carefully, gazes sweeping back and forth. All was quiet until Reid bumped his hip against a table.

He stepped aside with a hiss, and Alex turned to see him staring at the table as though it had personally offended him.

"You okay?" She asked quietly, glancing down the hall before turning back to him. When he didn't reply, never moving his eyes from the table, she tried again. "What is it?"

"I hit the table, and it didn't move at all," was the response she earned before he got down on one knee, prodding around the table legs. "It's bolted down to the floor, but I think the whole section of wood here can come up. Help me lift it, please."

She gripped one side of the table and he grabbed the other. They heaved it up as hard as they could, and after a few attempts, the wood paneling came up, leaving a dark pit in the ground that half-revealed a shadowed stairway to what looked like a basement.

"Bingo," she murmured, moving to help Reid lift another section of wood to fully clear the opening. "Nice work, Reid. Want to do the honors?"

Without looking at her, Reid carefully slunk down the first few steps. Blake whispered news of the discovery to Hotch over her radio before following her colleague down.

Reid pulled the light-switch upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, and the basement lit up with pale, sickly yellow light.

The space was sparse, with a bare desk against the wall containing nothing but folded clothes.

The pair approached it warily, and Alex lifted the first article from the pile, shaking it loose. It was a distinctly feminine long-sleeved shirt.

"Woman's clothing?" She asked, tilting her head.

"Could have been the mother's," Reid supplied, "Keep looking."

They paced the room for a few minutes before they heard steps at the top of the stairs.

"Reid? Blake?" Hotch's voice echoed above them.

"Down here," Alex confirmed, wheeling around to peer underneath the staircase. "Jackpot, Reid. Check this out."

Under the staircase was a dark, forest-green curtain crisscrossed with cobwebs and dotted with tiny holes bitten in by moths and whatever other tiny insects that had been making the basement home. The two profilers exchanged glances before she reached out and pulled it aside. They were met by the side of two neatly organized bodies hanging from the wall. They were nothing more than skeletons, though the decomposing remains of clothing were draped over the bones. Neither of the agents so much as flinched.

"Those must be the parents," Hotch's murmured behind them, and they turned to see the rest of the team there as well, sans Garcia, standing a little farther back.

"So this is where he started," Rossi mused. "We'd better get back to the station. We've done what we can."

"We'll have the sheriff arrange for the bodies to be taken to the morgue," Reid said firmly, "I'd like to take a closer look myself."

"Now that we're fairly certain where he started," Morgan growled, "we can start looking for this son of a bitch. Hotch, we should go statewide. Even if he's mentally off, he's probably got enough of a sense of self-preservation to know that we're onto him. He could pull a runner."

"Agreed," the unit chief replied with a heavy tone, "let's move."

"The man we're looking for is Anthony Kents. He was born and raised in Anchorage, and is thirty-two years old."

"He knows the territory extremely well and probably won't have any problems traveling through the terrain, even with the weather conditions being as harsh as they are."

"As far as we know, his body count could be as high as a hundred or more. He doesn't have physical weapons on him, but he should be considered extremely dangerous. He's able to take down full-grown adults of either gender with his bare hands."

"He's cannibalistic, so it's very important for people to avoid him at all costs if seen. We have no idea where he is now, but we want the entire state aware. This is a state-wide man hunt, and we need to catch him as soon as possible."

Hotch took the lead. "We want all search-parties to travel in groups of at least three or four. Kents has had no issues in taking down more than one person at a time. We advise you all to exercise extreme caution. We want him brought back here as soon as we find him, and we ask that he be brought in alive if at all possible. Good luck."

The police force split up, teams diverging and moving out, leaders and supervisors putting the calls out to other departments statewide.

Hotch paced a few times back and forth, mouth set in a harsh frown. "We need him brought in before he can hurt anyone else."

Morgan folded his arms across his broad chest, dark brows furrowing. "We're going to need to question him."

Hotch shook his head. "He's been beyond reason so far, and he's quick to attack. Our side might have to gun him down just to protect themselves before we can ask anything. Even if we do bring him in, questioning him won't likely help us at all.

"Hotch, with a body count as high as we're proposing..." Rossi added, grimacing, "we're going to be studying this for a long time."

"We should get teams sent back to Kents' lab to collect the formaldehyde samples too," Reid proposed, "we can start going over them and checking to see if we have double-names or if each specimen comes from a single victim."

"Good idea," the unit chief agreed, "Blake, Rossi and JJ- get back to the underground facility and begin collecting the samples. Take a team with you. Morgan, help Garcia look through missing persons in the last fifteen years that could be possible victims."

They dispersed to their tasks, leaving Hotch to wonder, and worry.

* * *

With a serial killer as impatient and vicious as Anthony Kents, every minute he was loose was putting countless people at risk. He would kill again, soon. Hotch could only hope beyond hope that they would find him before another innocent would violently have their lives torn away, die to become nothing but fodder for a ruthless psychotic.

Somewhere out there, Anthony Kents was on the hunt.

"Reid," Hotch growled darkly, and the younger profiler looked up to meet his gaze evenly, "let's get to the morgue and see what we can find on the parents."

Gloved hands searched, prodded and lifted, keen eyes scanning over the old remains and taking mental note of every micro-detail.

"Looks like blunt force trauma to the father's head," Reid informed Hotch from his position bent over the top of the male skeleton, "probably had to take him by surprise because he's male, and was harder to take down than the mother. The fracture is deep and split open pretty wide. This first hit could've been the killing blow."

"Was that the only injury to the body?"

Reid looked to the ME for expansion, and the older man, who had been standing on the opposite side of the body, was quick to comply. "No, but this was the only ante mortem injury. If the bodies were fresher, we could see if there were ligature marks. As it is, the rest of the injuries to the frame occurred after death. We have some nicking on the ribcage like the other victims, which are indicative of evisceration."

Hotch's brows drew together in thought. "If he took the organs like he did with the other, more recent victims..."

Reid looked up, hands twisting nervously. "These first two, his parents, were his starting point. At the time of their murder, he hadn't yet had a routine. Their organs might not be in jars at all- just like the bodies, they could be hidden somewhere else."

"I'll call Dave, and have him look out for anything that could help."

Reid, bent over the female body, didn't offer a reply.

Hotch slid from the room and into the hall, punching in to contact Rossi on the two-way radio. The stormy weather was mild enough for the moment for the signal to go through, and for that, he was thankful.

"Hotch?" The elder agent asked right away, "What did you find?"

"Same sort of removal as his more recent victims. Reid thinks that the organs might be in a special location, just like the bodies."

"We're collecting the jars from the 'trophy room' now, we'll do a deep search before we leave to see if we can find anything regarding the parents."

"Thank you. Call if you find anything."

"Right away. Be careful out there."

Once the call ended with Hotch, Rossi slid the radio onto her belt-clip. He watched Blake and JJ palming the glass mason jars, eyeing them carefully. They had collected nearly fifty so far, and he could only hope that there were more than one per victim, or else they were looking at a massive body count.

"The parents," he asked suddenly, spurring both other profilers to look up at him, pausing in their own work. "Reid thinks the body parts of the parents could be here too, but he thinks they would be better hidden. Any ideas?"

"Maybe in that room we were first brought into? With the table," JJ offered quickly, "or the space Reid and Morgan talked about, with the bodies on the walls?" Her face pinched in disgust.

"Well I'm not sure anything could have been hidden in there." Rossi replied, "There weren't shelves or storage spaces that Morgan or Reid mentioned."

"Storage space," Alex blurted as the word clicked, "like that storage freezer where we found the naked woman."

Looks were exchanged before they headed into the adjacent room. The metal lined walls in this particular space made the entire room seem darker and more sinister. The storage freezer at the opposite wall loomed tall and dark, the door shut and the little round window near the top frosted over and hiding whatever was left inside.

Rossi moved forward to open the doors, giving the freezer a good once-over. The police had removed the dead woman's body, but the great splashes of half-frozen blood remained. It soaked the floor and spattered the door, leaving not a place untouched.

On the sides and back wall of the freezer, great iron shelves rose, lined with white plastics tubs caked hard with a layer of ice.

"Want to make a bet on what's inside?" Blake asked darkly, gesturing to the tubs.

"They can't all belong to the parents," Rossi reasoned in response, frowning. "No choice but to look through them."

They sorted through the half-sealed storage tubs, pulling them open to see what was left inside. They were mostly empty, until JJ sucked in a harsh breath that brought her colleague's attention back to her.

Lying in the open tub at her feet was a young woman. Her head and torso were hers, but the arms and legs were sewn on at the shoulder and hip joints. The lengthy limbs compared to the torso suggested that they were not her own.

That wasn't what caught their attention. JJ reached a gloved hand down into the young girl's open and cleaned abdominal cavity, her breath caught in her throat at the cold chill the discovery brought.

"Call Hotch," was all she said.

* * *

**Revised & reposted 3.7.13. Didn't specify who was speaking in the profiling scene, so use your imagination.**


	7. Chapter 7

"_**Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals."**_

_Martin Luther King JR_

* * *

**CHAPTER 7**

It didn't take long for Hotch and Reid to join the others in the underground facility. Officers were trooping through the room around the agents while they examined the chilling discovery made by JJ less than an hour before.

Filling the cleaned abdominal cavity of the dead girl were hundreds of small, bleach-white bones.

"Teeth," Reid supplied, kneeling beside the frame and pulling a few of the jagged bones from the array with a blue-gloved hand, held out for the others to see. "There look to be a couple hundred in here, but they appear to be molars only. Makes sense, if he'd taken all the teeth from each victim we would have seen them missing."

"A few hundred?" Blake demanded, brows lifting together in startled understanding.

"We can get them processed to see which ones match, to see how many victims we're dealing with but it'll take time," Reid offered in reply, sounding almost apologetic.

"We can send them off for processing," Hotch added impatiently, "but we need to proceed."

"Found something else," Rossi interjected, emerging from the freezer and placing the white tub in his hands onto the cold, concrete floor. The others peered inside to see the frozen flesh piled haphazardly inside.

"Organs," JJ murmured, shoulder sinking, "from the parents?"

"Send those off for processing too," Hotch uttered darkly, turning on his heel to head back above ground, already pulling the two-way radio from his belt.

Rossi replaced the lid on the container and moved to add it to the rest of the evidence currently being confiscated while Reid met Alex's concerned gaze.

"Alex, I know there's nothing to suggest that he has a partner, but this really is a lot for one man."

She shook her head. "I don't know what to think right now, Reid. This is... a lot to process."

Her attention shifted back to the half-frozen remains, with the girl's torso and head and the mismatched limbs of men. "This kind of brutality..."

"It's not exactly brutal," Reid interrupted quickly, and she quieted, recognizing that he was thinking. "The way these limbs are attached to the body like that- it's more experimental than torturous. I mean, there's no doubt a lot of these victims have been tortured but it's almost like he's... curious."

"About the limits he can push these people to?" She asked in reply, frowning when Reid shrugged a shoulder in response.

"Maybe. We need to get to him. He doesn't speak, but that doesn't mean he's incapable."

Blake tapped a well-kept nail against her lower lip. "Maybe we can shock him into speaking... but what shocks someone that looks at stuff like this on a daily basis?"

When Reid looked at her again, she could see something stormy in his hazel eyes. "We don't need to shock him- but we can excite him."

Her mouth formed an 'o' in understanding. "And what better way to excite a psychotic than with his own treasures?"

They turned to look toward where the officers were photographing the extensive amount of recovered body parts, feeling the tiniest bit lighter.

It was Hotch's voice that reached them, loud and clear from above. "We've got him."

* * *

It was late now, and the rushing whoosh of snow and wind created a tornado of sound that drowned out the screams of the male youth being torn to shreds in a flurry of blood and sweat.

Even against the icy chill of the sub-zero air and surrounding snow, sweat poured from the frame of the hulking male and the current prey suffering at his hands.

Strings of blood-streaked saliva trickled from a mouth half-opened in sloppy excitement, murky eyes focused on the fear glittering in his toy's own flickering orbs. Untrimmed nails dug into the man's throat, leaving crescent-shaped ridges in the moon-white skin. Rage exploded in him at the sight of the rise and fall of his prey's chest, the idea of life flowing through the smaller body driving him to the brink of insanity once more.

Hands raised and came down, the force of the crippling blows splintering bone until it tore through feeble flesh, the cries of suffering lost in the screeching of the frozen wind.

A choked laugh escaped reddened lips as he felt the life leave the form beneath his calloused hands. The body was caved in, broken and twisted beyond recognition.

He stared at it for a while, his bulky form decently-insulated against the cold within layers of weather-ready clothing.

He had just fisted battered hands into the mess of the half-collapsed skull when floodlights from above washed over him in a blinding haze.

Anthony looked up in startled realization, finally picking out the muffled sound of helicopter blades spinning furiously in the all-encompassing wind. He tightened his grip on his prize, red-stained teeth bared in furious defiance.

"Anthony Kents, this is the police. Back away and put your hands behind your head, we have the area surrounded." The voice rang out strongly against the pressurized wind and he tilted his head in what looked like understanding, though made no move to comply. His clenched hands tightened in the mess of blood and tissues in his grip, and the chopper kept the lights directly pointed at him.

He didn't look when he heard others beginning to approach. Officers trickled into view from the white wasteland of snow that swirled around like a hurricane, guns pointed and aimed for the kill.

He didn't move.

They'd been ordered to take Kents in alive if possible, but each officer stood stock-still with muscles tensed, trigger-fingers ready if the murderer made an incorrect move.

The cold was indescribable. It was the kind of cold that sucked the breath from lungs and left muscles stiff and paralyzed, eyes dry and unblinking and skin deprived of the sense of touch, frozen and unfeeling.

The winds and hurtling snow had slowed ever so slightly in the time it had taken for the team to regroup and make it to the scene. They slunk from the vehicles dressed for cold and protected by kevlar, weapons at the ready and bodies tight as drawn bowstrings while they moved to surround the figure crouched in the snow.

"Anthony Kents," Hotch shouted above the wind, "We're the FBI- we need you to come with us."

"We know you didn't mean to hurt those people," Rossi offered from beside Hotch, taking a few steps closer but remaining cautious. "You were just curious, weren't you? You always wanted to see what it was like... you always had urges. Ever since you were little, you were different. Your parents made you feel that being different was bad, didn't they? That's why your father left... that's why you had to get rid of them... because they were unfair to you."

Kents sat up, removing his hands from the dead man to bring them in front of himself, splayed in the snow and leaving streaks of crimson behind. The movement allowed the floodlights to highlight a flash of metal against his hip. He said nothing, but he was listening, encouraging them to continue.

"He's got a knife on him guys, he hasn't used it, but it's on his belt," Morgan growled into his mic from beside the car, keeping a careful aim at their murderer's head.

"You were only doing what you always needed to," Rossi proceeded, dark eyes shifting to look just past Kents' kneeling form, seeing three figures emerging from the expanse of white that lay beyond. "You didn't mean to hurt anyone, we know that. You're... you're not in trouble. We just want to talk. You can just listen, if you want, but not out here. We need you to come with us, can you do that?"

Eyes narrowed and Anthony lurched to his feet, the people behind him sprung into motion.

The sheriff lunged at Kents, moving to tackle him down and provide a distraction. Feeling the weight on his back sent Anthony into a frenzy and he snarled, twisting violently.

JJ barely had time to pull her weapon into alignment as Reid ripped the knife from Kents' belt before the monster of a man threw the sheriff from his back and whirled around, catching Reid in the jaw with a first hard enough to send the slighter male hurtling into JJ's own lithe form.

The two of them crumpled to the frozen ground and they looked up in time to see two massive fists coming down at them.

Before bone-breaking force had a chance to hit them, a shot rang out, and Anthony Kents howled, going down violently. Hotch and Rossi wasted no time moving to subdue him, cuffing his thick wrists tightly behind his back and waiting for help in moving him.

Breathing like a wounded animal, Kents allowed them this.

Murky eyes faced the ground while they forced him to his feet, blood trickling sluggishly from the hole in his upper thigh caused by Rossi's glock.

He was aggressive and pulled at the cuffs, but he seemed to have just enough sense to know when a fight was lost.

Morgan half-limped to where JJ and Reid were untangling themselves and stumbling up from the snow, white powder coating their clothes and nearly making them invisible against the ground.

"You guys okay?" He demanded as he reached them, reaching out to put a hand on each of their shoulders.

JJ seemed stunned, her gun limp in her hands and eyes staring blankly at Morgan's dark-skinned hand on her shoulder.

Reid nodded mutely, coughing strings of blood from a near-cracked jaw and trying to keep unsteady legs from buckling.

Morgan's concern didn't abate even after they'd all been ushered back into the trucks and were en-route back to the station from which they'd been operating.

He watched JJ holster her weapon and run shaking hands through pale hair, and Reid leaning against the window with a bruise blackening by the second on the left side of his face, trying not to wheeze, and in that moment, he couldn't even feel relief that Kents had been apprehended.

He only felt cold.

* * *

Their arrival was anything but well-received.

Every officer in the station seemed nervous and on-edge, and they had every right to be.

Kents had had no less than five guns pointed in his face the entire drive, and now had two people holding his arms on each side as he was marched into the building with a badly limping gait.

"Get the bullet wound looked at," Hotch ordered as they stormed through the doors, "but do it quickly, it looked like a through-and-through and we need him secured in interrogation as soon as possible."

Anthony was marched from view and Blake appeared in Hotch's vision. He met her unreadable gaze evenly.

"Everything is ready for the questioning," she said hurriedly, offering him a stuffed folder.

"Good work, thank you," he replied tiredly, "help the others inside, please."

She found the rest of her bedraggled teammates already seated in what served as a kind of waiting room in the very front of the station. Lined up on a long bench against the wall, Garcia was planted firmly between Morgan and Reid, fussing over Derek's injured leg that was aching from standing on it while JJ held her hands firmly between her knees, staring blankly at the opposing wall. Blake grimaced when she saw that the warm, wet rag Reid held to his jaw was spattered with blood.

"What happened?" she asked in a soft voice, trying to feel relieved, and only feeling stressed.

"He's very difficult to subdue," JJ said dryly, seeming to snap out of her daze. "Is he ready for questioning?"

"He is now," Rossi's voice rang out, the familiarity of it washing over them like a balm and drawing the attention of all five of them. "Let's get this over with."

Kents sat stiffly, hands double-cuffed to the arms of the sturdy chair that was somehow supporting his weight despite its feeble appearance. He stared blankly at the mirror against the opposite wall, unable to see the entire BAU and several officers filing into the room on the other side.

"Blake, are you up to coming in with me?" Hotch asked harshly, though not unkindly. "A woman's presence might interest him, just enough to get him to pay attention."

She didn't seem at all surprised. "Good cop/bad cop, huh? Sure, I can play nice- it's not like he's one of the most brutal serials I've ever seen or anything." The last part was murmured under her breath but Hotch knew she was just unnerved, and the two of them made their way into the room with the rest of the team watching closely.

Anthony didn't look up as they entered, his blank gaze staying leveled at the mirror as though he was looking into the very souls of the people just on the other side despite the fact that he couldn't see them at all.

Hotch didn't say anything as he took a seat and set the folder on the table. Blake sat beside him, watching Kents until he made eye contact with her. She leaned forward in her seat, hands folded carefully and his cloudy gaze seemed to register the sight of her, confusion playing across his haggard face.

"Anthony," she started gently, keeping her voice even despite the fact that she wanted nothing more than to get out of the room, to get as far away from him as possible. "We need you to tell us about yourself. You need to tell us... why you do what you do."

Predictably, he said nothing, his eyes shifting uncomfortably between her and Hotch.

Wordlessly, Hotch opened the folder and slid several glossy, high-res photographs across the metal table. They were disturbingly graphic and Alex had to force herself not to look away.

It seemed to wake him up. He leaned forward, eyes roving over the photos greedily. He pulled at the cuffs as though making to touch the pictures and Hotch slid them back towards himself protectively.

"You had quite a lot of work hidden down in your home," he said coldly, "we want to know about you. We want to know about your work, and what inspired you to do what you do. You could teach a lot of people you know, you could help. You can help us understand, so we can help you."

Kents leaned in far enough to make them uncomfortable, though neither of them showed it, and for the first time that they'd seen, his muddy eyes held an emotion.

And it was sadness.

"How did you get this way, Anthony?" Alex asked gently, her own eyes sad as she realized that his personality wasn't as black and white as they had originally thought.

However, it seemed that his window of clarity had passed and he shrunk into himself, quiet and unwilling to make eye contact, shoulders hunched in what they recognized as insecurity.

"It started with your parents," Hotch said suddenly, and Anthony jerked back to attention, looking startled, and then angry.

His eyes narrowed and he lunged forward, making the table tremble hard enough to send photos fluttering to the ground.

He gave a bitter growl, rough and rasping against a throat used to animalistic sounds instead of real speech. It was unnerving and the pair of agents could see the fiery rage igniting behind his eyes.

Alex couldn't break eye contact with that inhuman gaze, and she startled at the feel of Hotch's hand on her shoulder. He was already standing.

She rose too and allowed him to guide her from the room, feeling Anthony's eyes burning onto her back as she went.

"We'll keep watch overnight," an officer—Warren, if she remembered correctly—offered kindly. "You all should head back to the inn and get some sleep, it's been a rough couple of days, huh?"

They were all inclined to take her advice, although it was hard to be at ease when those animal eyes tracked their movements through glass that hid them from view as though he knew where they were.

He couldn't see them, but he was watching. Always, always watching.

* * *

They rested uneasily in the lobby of the small inn. Discomfort at splitting up had gone unspoken, and so they huddled across the couches, loveseats and armchairs that decorated the lobby and Garcia was seated on the carpeted floor by the fireplace on her laptop, pounding away at the keys, performing some mindless task or another, trying to forget all that she had seen that day.

The hours crept by and they slept uncomfortably, dreams of cannibals and blood forcing into their thoughts and subconscious, struggling to tear them away from the sleep they all so desperately craved.

It was barely five in the morning when Hotchner's cell phone rang, startling the group into wakefulness. They waited with baited breath for their boss to answer the phone.

His face was serious as he listened, trying to avoid the gazes of his teammates. Morgan and Reid looked pained and exhausted, but worried. Garcia looked afraid, Blake resigned, JJ unsure of what to make of the situation, and Rossi seemed, as usual, collected and calculating, his dark gaze weighing heavily on Hotch's as though accusingly waiting for the unit chief to drop a proverbial bomb on them.

"Thank you," Hotch said as he ended the call, meeting those emotional gazes that all pointed at him and making him feel so, so tired.

"Kents is ready to cooperate."

* * *

**Revised & reposted 3.7.13**

**Not sure when Ch. 8 will be up, I haven't been feeling much love for Crim lately. :( **

**my apologies. Feel free to bug me for updates if it gets to be too long.**


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